Truth and Myth in the Literal-to-Paraphrase Diagram (part 3)

Now that I've critiqued what such diagrams claim to display, by looking at what is “literal” (part 1) and at “relative positioning”(part 2), it’s appropriate to mention some things that the literal-to-free diagram does not account for. 

For now let’s discuss: “reading level” and “register.”

“Reading level” is to do with the range of vocabulary (and complex sentences) that a Bible version employs, and therefore it may have an “age level” suitability (identified as a school-grade reading level). These recommended “reading levels” will not be agreed upon by all. I tend toward the more optimistic side of the Australian-based reading levels.

The NIV, for example, is suited for about a grade 6 competence reading level which is lower than the NRSV (approx 10th grade). But differences in reading level are not always very noticeable, so Mk 5:25-28:

NRSV: Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.”

NIV: And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.”

Actually both NRSV and NIV have simplified this single long sentence in similar ways, by breaking it into three sentences to make it easier to read. “For she said” (NRSV) also belongs to a more formal “register” than NIV’s “because she said.” 

(NOTE "Formal register" is nothing to do with "formal/literal method of translation"--"formal register" has a very different meaning. "Register” refers to the kind of language suited to a particular purpose or setting. The kind of language spoken among friends tends to be much less formal than the kind of language one is expected to use in a high-school essay which is still not as formal as that of a PhD thesis. So "formal" as in "not casual" or "not informal." 

Sometimes, a more advanced reading-level corresponds to a more “formal register.” Compare, however, Eugene Petersen’s The Message (at the furthest extreme on the right of the diagram) and the Good News Bible (fourth version from the right-hand side). The Message was written in contemporary American English for adult readers, using highly idiomatic English phrases that try to engage modern readers with a more “casual” tone. By contrast the Good News Bible (GNB) was made for low-level readers, especially non-native English speakers (whose first language is not English). What is interesting about this comparison is that even though these two are positioned closely together on Bible version diagrams, they are quite different in both register and reading level.

The GNB was written in the kind of English “commonly used by people most of the time” and uses a moderately formal register (not colloquial style) and so it tries to avoid informal language (slang and colloquialisms). It also tries to avoid “big words” (theological jargon). It is generally aimed at a moderately low reading level (about grade 4 or 5 [Australian grades]). Likewise its replacement version, the CEV (made in 1995), was aimed at quite a low reading level (about grade 3 or 4) so that reading aloud could be done easily and fluently. By contrast, The Message requires a much higher reading level (grade 6+) and deliberately uses informal (American) language.

Yet the literal-to-paraphrase diagram does not display any of these factors. Simply adding reading levels to the diagram would appear rather jumbled:

By now it should be becoming clear that arranging English Bible versions on a two-dimensional scale does not do justice to the complexity of Bible translation philosophy. Such diagrams are more useful for exposing them for what they fail to show.

I could go on critiquing such diagrams . . . For example, the degree of “literalness” means different things to different translators. For example, the KJV is usually considered to be quite “literal” (that is, relatively closer to the left-hand extreme). However, it lacks one of the most common components of "formal/literal" methods--the use of “word consistency” whereby the same source words are consistently represented in the target text by the same corresponding words in English. Instead, the KJV translators tried to avoid the overuse of stereotypical correspondences so as help make the translation more readable (by employing a variety of English words for the same Hebrew or Greek word).

So that’s about it folks for the literal-to-free diagram!

Oh, here’s one more picture showing the lack of correspondence between word counts and alleged “literalness” (care of epistlesofthomas based on stats from a paper by Karen H. Jobes “Bible Translation as Bilingual Quotation.”):

But stay tuned for plenty more snippets on Bible translation theory . . .

 

What's "New" about My First Bibles?

I've been thinking lately about the names of my first eight Bibles, and I'd like to comment on what exactly is “New” about these versions. 
My first Bible versions, beginning from when I first learned to read at age 7, were:

1. New Berkley Version (age 7)
2. New King James Version (age 9)
3. New Century Version (age 14)
4. New International Version (age 17)
5. New Living Translation (age 21)
6. New Revised Standard Version (age 22)
7. English Standard Version (age 25)
8. New English Translation (age 27)

I won't here talk about the relationship between my age and my Bible version. I want instead to discuss the fact that 7 out of the 8 versions contain the word “New” in their titles. What is meant to be “New” is not the same for each.

The “New” in the “New Berkley Version” (I think my edition back then did not have “New” in the name but my 1969 edition does) was meant to indicate that it was “not just another revision” but presented “a completely new translation” (i.e. not based on any previous English versions).

By contrast the “New” in the “New King James Version” indicates that it was simply a new edition of the KJV (replacing "thee, thou, and ye" with "you" etc.), that is, it is only a light revision of the KJV.

The “New” in “New Century Version” is apparently meant to indicate that it was (like the Berkley version) a new/fresh translation using contemporary language—however the NCV is actually one of two versions (along with the International Children’s Bible) published by Word Publishing Company that were developed together (the simpler version, the ICB was released a year earlier, in 1986) and it is not clear if the NCV was developed (revised) out of the ICB or whether the ICB was revised from the NCV. Both the ICB and NCV may have been revised from the earlier 1978 “English Version for the Deaf” which was also marketed as “A New Easy-to-Read-Version” (and the revision has recently continued with the “Expanded Bible”, 2011). So perhaps the “New” in “New Century Version” was actually meant to refer to the new century (20th century) and its use of modern (20th century) language.

The “New” in “New International Version” is more complex and represents a bit of a contradiction. The NIV was conceived and intended to supplant the apparently “liberal” Revised Standard Version as a replacement “Authorised” or “Standard Version” (before deciding on New International Version several other names were considered two of which were “Twentieth Century Authorized Version” and “Twentieth Century Standard Translation”) so in many ways it tried to position itself as standing in the same legacy (just like the RSV) of the Tyndale-KJV-RV tradition of Authorized English revisions (it sought to “preserve some measure of continuity with the long tradition”). But at the same time it intended to promote itself as “a completely new translation”. It may make sense then to see it as a version that was (somewhat) both “International” and “New” but not necessarily as (mutually) distinctively both (it was “new” because it was somewhat interdenominational and international). But it was not really “new” in the sense of being a (particularly) modern speech version. (Although “Contemporary English Version” was another name considered during the task of finding a name for the future NIV, the degree to which the NIV was not a truly modern speech version is partly due to its conflicting purpose of providing a “standard”/ “authorized” version and partly due to its being largely a product of translation done in the 1960s–early-1970s).

The “New” in the “New Living Translation” is also not very simple. It is meant to identify it as a version sailing on the fame of Kenneth Taylor’s “Living Bible” paraphrase but with little to no relationship to it other than in name (it was undertaken by Tyndale House Publishers which was founded by Taylor, and originally the NLT began as a project to revise Taylor's Living Bible). It is therefore entirely new and not a revision of a previous English version (the 2004 version of the same name is of course a revision of the 1996 NLT version).

The “New” in “New Revised Standard Version” is meant to indicate that it is a revision of the “Revised Standard Version” (but obviously they couldn’t call it the “Revised Revised Standard Version”! – the RSV had already to overcome the same issue when it revised the “Revised Version”. So both “New” and “Standard” here overcome the problem of a having a “revised revised revised version.” However, the NRSV is more than simply a revision, Metzger explains it as “another step in the long, continual process of making the Bible available in the form of the English language that is most widely current in our day” so the “New” is meant to represent the use of modern language (hence the inclusive use of “brothers and sisters” and gender neutral pronouns). Despite being a revision of a revision (of a revision etc.) the NRSV is actually in several ways a "new" (fresh) translation.

There is no “New” in “English Standard Version” for good reason (no accident). The ESV was by nature somewhat “anti-new” and “pro-old”. The ESV was a very light revision of the RSV made by (and for) those who still prefer the old RSV to the New RSV. I find it somewhat ironic that the NIV largely succeeded in ousting the RSV from the popular market (as the "new" standard version) for the very same reason that the ESV is likewise doing now (to capture the conservative market). So it seems that in the 1950s the RSV was too new for some churches but is just about right for those same churches (in the form of the ESV) (probably as it is not “new” anymore).

I will finish, for now, with my eighth Bible, the “NET” or NETBible. The “New” in “New English Translation” plays a double role. It indicates a “new translation” (not a revision) and it also helps create the abbreviation NET indicating that it began life on the Internet. It was the first (new) Bible translation to be published online (1996) before being published in print (2005).

Looking at the different kinds of “New” in the titles of my first Bibles has afforded an interesting way to begin thinking about how Bible versions are named and the translation philosophy to which such names belong.

Next post, I plan to try myth-busting the most widely held myth about translation philosophy...